This epic hanging scroll reveals Kodojin’s fully developed ink idiom: a vast, tiered mountain landscape composed of layered dotting, pooling, and wash, where the upper forms evoke Mi Fu–style cloud mountains, while the lower section dissolves into abstract zones of mist and bamboo groves. The brush alternates between densely scored vertical strokes suggesting rocky strata and freely scattered ink dots. The result is an oscillation between solid and void, structure and vapor, conveying the Daoist sense of a living, permeable universe. In the foreground, clusters of bamboo rise among textured stones, grounding the composition in the symbol of upright resilience.
A possible reading of the poem on the right is:
I am already old—what joy, what sorrow remains?
Though not yet dead, worldly affairs have long been set aside.
I gather herbs and drink from the streams, longing for the Crimson Hill of Immortals.
Gazing upward and downward, I sigh without end—desiring to depart, yet lingering still.
Rivers and mountains endure in their flowing,
The sun and moon hang above my head.
Vast, vast is the universe—alone I wander,
Delighting in transformation.
—Mid-summer of the Year of the Boar (1935)
The left appears to read:
Clumsiness is truth,
Truth is the ancient way.
To follow the ancients without imitating them—this is the key.
My family’s secret of painting,
Ink on paper in an ivory-colored silk border with blue piping and shunkei lacquered wooden rollers enclosed in a wooden box. The scroll is 44 x 187 cm (17-1/2 x 73-1/2 inches) and is in excellent condition.
Fukuda Kodojin (1865-1944) was an eccentric self-taught artist, his status as a poet, calligrapher and literati artist has reached legendary status. Born at a time of great change (4 years before the final fall of the Edo Government), he lived through the westernization of Meiji, Taisho Democracy, the rise of Imperialism and final defeat of the Showa eras. He was part of a small group of artists existing outside conventional circles in pre-war Japan. He moved to a village outside of Kyoto in 1901, where he supported himself and his family by privately tutoring those who wished to learn Chinese-style poetry. Kodojin was simply a scholar. His poetry, painting, and calligraphy all stem from a life-long cultivation of the mind. He was said to have taken the time just before his death to destroy the large portion of his own remaining work, leaving only that which must have met some personal criteria. Kodōjin’s paintings and calligraphy survive mainly in private collections, but significant works can be found in the collections of the British Museum, Freer Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, Honolulu Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museo Kaluz, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Tanabe City Museum of Art and Wakayama Prefectural Museum of Art among others including such well known Private collections as the Cowles Collection, Hakutakuan Collection, Manyoan Collection and Welch Collection. Twenty five paintings by the artist formed a private exhibition (from the Gitter-Yelen collection) at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2000. In recent years, exhibitions such as The Last Master of the Literati Tradition: Fukuda Kodojin (Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2023) have brought renewed attention to his achievement. For more on his life see the book Old Taoist, or Unexplored Avenues of Japanese Painting.
